In a known machine of this type, the cutter blades of the cutter head are retained, by positive locking, against one wall of the groove-shaped receptacle. The cutter blade is retained in the receptacle by means of a clamping part, which is pressed against the cutter blade by means of screws. The cutting circle of the cutter head is defined by the outer cutting edges of the cutter blades, these cutting edges projecting beyond the periphery of the cutter head. If the cutting edges are worn, they must be removed from the receptacle, reground, and resecured in the receptacle of the cutter head. The readjustment of all the cutter blades of the cutter head, to the original cutting circle diameter, now creates considerable difficulties. After each adjustment, a test run is required in order to determine the exact cutting circle diameter. If, for example, high quality timber workpieces are to be machined, one of these high quality and expensive pieces of wood must always be used as a test sample. Moreover, a single adjustment frequently does not suffice, but readjustments are required, with the result that, once used in the case of each readjustment, these test pieces of timber are scrap, and can no longer be used for further processing.
Machines are also known, which have cutter heads in which the cutter blades are formed by reversible cutting tips. When the cutting edges of such cutter blades are blunt, they are not reground, but are reversed. However, even in the case of this reversing procedure, expensive and tedious adjustments are necessary in order to regain the original cutting circle diameter.
For this reason, there has been a trend towards using so-called throw-away cutting tips or blades in the cutter heads. If the cutting tips are blunt, they are exchanged for new cutting tips. However, the individual cutting tips also have manufacturing variations among themselves, with the result that it is generally impossible to set the desired exact cutting circle diameter in the case of simply exchanging the cutting tips, and readjustments are likewise necessary.